A/N: Spin-off my series. You do NOT have to read my series to read this.
For those that have read the series, a little something (and someone) different. If there are any other characters you're curious about, let me know, and I'll see what I can do!
Review, please!
Disclaimer: Anything you recognise belongs to J.K. Rowling.
Evan Rosier was mine from the beginning – from the moment I was sorted into Slytherin, even though he didn't know it. He smiled at me as I took my place at the table. He smiled at me, and my heart was no longer my own.
Evan didn't know he held my heart in the palm of his hand. He couldn't know at age eleven, then twelve, and then thirteen. He was too young and full of spark and curiosity. He was alight with freedom and preferred the camaraderie of his male counterparts, as most boys did at eleven, then twelve, and then thirteen. His mates were similar to Evan in their powerful need to prove they were alive, reeling and tumbling through their days in a wave of eagerness and daring.
He made me laugh, even when he wasn't trying. Even when he was being silly for the sake of some other girl. I patiently waited.
He sat in front of me in two classes. I spent my favourite parts of my Hogwarts education staring at the back of his head. His light brown hair, shorter than most purebloods wore theirs. Soft, like fresh laundry. His skin was always tanned come September since he'd spent a lot of time outside at his friend Amycus' summer home in the Cotswolds. He and his mates would come back to school every year talking about the fun they had swinging on ropes into the clear lake, sneaking shots of Mr. Carrow's stash of Fire Whiskey, and sleeping by bonfire light under the stars.
I'd gaze at his sun soaked neck, and imagine jumping into the lake with him. I adored Evan Rosier. I wanted so much to touch his soft, tanned neck, and the hair that kissed it.
Sometimes he would slip me funny drawings during class. I'd see him silently scribbling away on a piece of parchment. The next thing I knew his hand would come over his shoulder, a drawing in it for me. I'd take it from him, my fingers brushing against his, the briefest contact that lit me up inside. I'd look at the paper in my hand and grin. The pictures were always something funny, like caricatures of professors, or Gryffindors being frightened by something benign, like a horklump, or a butterfly. I laughed at the jokes, despite coming from a family of Gryffindors, because Evan, my fellow Slytherin, drew them for me.
The Travers family was known for its deep brown eyes and swirly brown hair. My cousin Gavin, my brother Brogan, and countless other members of my family, including me, shared the same eyes. But my hair was different from the rest of my family. It was light and long. Wild. Evan had a thing for my hair.
I had no opinion on the rest of myself. I was Teagan. Teagan Travers with the pretty hair. I knew my hair was pretty because Evan couldn't keep his hands off of it. He'd pull it and run when we were eleven. He'd tug it when he passed me bent over a text book in the library when we were twelve. He'd playfully mess it up in class before he took his seat when we were thirteen.
Only a few others in my family were sorted into Slytherin, and they were rotten. Mummy told me so, and she also told me to be careful of the friends I made in Slytherin. I could tell she was nervous about me being in Slytherin instead of Gryffindor. I knew she wondered deep down if there was something wrong with me. In fact, I had worried as well. For the fourteen seconds it took me to walk from the front of the Great Hall to the Slytherin table, I was terrified that I must be warped like my Uncle Joel, or insane like my Great Aunt Lucille. They were the ones the family never spoke about because they had done unspeakable things. That's how mummy always put it. From the moment the Hat had spoken until the moment I squeezed between Esmeralda Roux and Elsinore Collins at the table, I was worried. Then I saw Evan Rosier smiling at me.
I wasn't worried anymore.
It took him longer to realise he was mine. Years even. For years my Evan would lead my heart on a chase, and like water, he would always slip through my fingers. Just when I thought I was his, he'd be gone again. Off with Esmeralda Roux, or Delilah Burke. They were my friends. It hurt, but I couldn't tell them. They told me later that they'd only ever kissed him, that he never really wanted them.
And it was true. But at the time, seeing his hand holding Delilah's, or watching his arm slip round Esmeralda's shoulders; it felt like my veins were bleeding out. Smiling was like lifting a twenty stone weight. My heart resided in my throat then, and the tears would come at night, in the dark, when my roommates couldn't see.
Evan, my Evan.
It wasn't until fifth year that things started to change. Evan didn't just sit in front of me, passing me drawings. He would turn round and talk to me. His voice was deeper, like strong tea with only a hint of sugar. He loved to ask if I'd seen him blocking the Quaffle a certain way during a particular Quidditch match, or if I noticed how Professor Flitwick wore the same trousers every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. He would talk about how Bertie Botts Beans should include flavours like "Morning Breath" and "Hagrid's Farts." I would laugh because I loved him. I could laugh at him all day, because he was funny and clever. He would smile and his cheeks would turn scarlet, and that was how I knew he liked making me laugh.
Evan and his mates sometimes sat with us at meals. He would sit across from me and he would nudge me under the table when Dumbledore was speaking to the student body, and when I'd look at him, he'd be straight-faced, like he hadn't done a thing. Other times he'd make exaggerated faces and sounds at how good the food tasted, long, drawn out Mmmms, or sometimes he'd pretend it was awful and he'd act overly put off by it, wrinkling his nose and asking, "What is this? Dog food?" And again I would laugh. His mates would call him a plonker, but he didn't care. "It takes a plonker to know a plonker," he'd say. Then, he would wink at me. He was being silly because he knew I liked it.
He'd stopped tugging my hair by fifth year, and instead he would play with it gently as he spoke to me on the common room floor where we would sprawl out in front of the fire. Our talks would last into the wee hours of the morning. They'd be about things like our favourite ice cream flavour; his was chocolate and mine was vanilla, our favourite season; his was summer, mine was autumn, and our best childhood memory; his was going to his first Quidditch match with his father, mine was the birth of my baby brother.
Sometimes we'd talk about the big stuff. The meaning of life. What happens when we die? Is the world made up of good and evil, or are we all good, and are we all evil? He'd ask me about my family and I'd ask about his. His father was his hero. My mother was my lifeline. We would grow silent then, because we knew his family might not approve of mine. Too many blood-traitors. Too many Gryffindors. That was when the conversation would end and we'd go our separate ways until the next time. Sometimes it was a night or two later, sometimes a week or two. But my Evan always came back to me. He'd seek me out, and I'd smile from the inside out to the tips of my fingers. You see, I loved Evan Rosier, and finally, he loved me.
Evan and Teagan. Holding hands. Kissing. Slipping into broom cupboards. Inseparable.
Until something happened. Something so terrible and tragic that the Earth tilted off its axis. And he changed. Slowly, but surely, he grew angry at the world. It would be the thing to take the sunshine from my face, the skip from my step, and the life from his amber eyes. It would inevitably pull my Evan away from me and into the darkness.
For good.
But before that happened, it was Chocolate and Vanilla. Summer and Autumn. Rosier and Travers.
And when all was said and done, my heart would ache to go back to my fifteenth year, begging to return to the time when life was far more innocent than we turned out to be.
To the time when Evan Rosier was mine.